Shaky Ground
by Missie2
Summary: A drastic decision by the Diamond Authority drives Rose further from them and closer to Pearl. Part 21 of Breaking Down, for all other parts please click my username.


**Shaky Ground**

" **Which is why we say '** _ **I can't live without you'**_ **meaning '** _ **your life gives life to me, who am otherwise an empty vessel, nameless.**_ **"**

 _ **-Joyce Carol Oates**_

… **..**

Two more explosions rocked the districts. One was another barracks, taking twenty Jaspers, two Flourites and scorching half of the distribution building beside it. The other was a supposedly abandoned warehouse rumoured to be a meeting place for gang activity.

At the meeting that followed these explosions, Rose felt numb. One of the Flourites killed had attended her party. She'd spoken to her less than three cycles ago. Between this and the knowledge that her trusted friend was a monster, she felt like she was going mad.

"...that _still_ doesn't explain the lack of a frame, even if the core ingredient was francium," Blue finished her tirade just in time for Rose to tune back in.

"That's all well and good," White drawled. "And you've talked a lot about what's not happening and what we can't do, but I don't hear you offering any actual solutions."

Blue stiffened in her chair, neatly folding her hands in front of her.

"As it happens, I have a solution," Yellow said quietly.

"Well then, go right ahead," White said with a wave. "We're all ears."

"Whatever the means of the explosions, it's clear that whoever's behind them is no longer intimidated by us. And why wouldn't they be? We haven't fought a battle in over a hundred orbits. We need to make it clear that going against us will not end well for them."

Rose felt a trickle of apprehension. She had heard someone talk like this once, a long time ago...

"I think we need to consider infusions."

The word was scarcely out of Yellow's mouth before Rose slammed her hands down on the table.

"NO! No, I will not agree to this!" she shouted.

"Pink, nice of you to join us," White drawled.

"Reconsider this," Rose growled, glaring at Yellow. "There are other ways."

"What other ways would you suggest, _Rose,"_ Yellow said quietly, rage flashing in her eyes.

"I don't know yet, but we will find them. Infusions are out of the question," she replied. "For one thing, we haven't enough substrate to sustain them, and what we do have isn't distilled enough."

"Terraforming will solve that problem for us," White shrugged. "And it would take some of the more...radical elements off of Homeworld. We'd take care of two problems at one stroke. I'm in favour."

"Infusions were always a last resort," Rose said, desperately looking for a way around this. "Do you think Diamond Core would have agreed to it if we hadn't been desperate? We didn't even know if it would work..."

"Your worship of Diamond Core is admirable, but it's getting a little old, Pink," Blue interrupted. "She was an ordinary gem, like us. If it worked for her, it will work for us."

"Her gem was _whole_ when she took the infusions," Rose told her, pointedly staring at her gem.

For a moment, it looked like Blue would hurl herself at Rose, and she prepared to summon her weapon as her co-ruler glared, shaking. But she took a deep breath and settled instead, stroking over her gem in the place the crack lay, under the surface.

"Perhaps we should vote," she said smoothly, burying her anger under cold formality.

"I'm in favour," Yellow said.

"Me too," White agreed.

"And I," Blue smiled, a truly bitter expression. "You're outnumbered, Pink."

"Do as you please," Rose hissed. "I'll have no part in it."

…..

She was still shaking when she arrived back at her apartment. She couldn't even dredge up a single word to say to Pearl, who looked alarmed when she saw her face. She practically hurled herself into her rest pod to shut out the rest of the world.

 _It's the only way. It will ensure the survival of our species. I have no regrets._

"You wouldn't want this," Rose mumbled to herself. "Not like this..."

There was a rustling behind her, and without opening her eyes she could tell Pearl had slipped into the rest pod with her. She didn't speak, or try to touch Rose, or even try to make her aware of her presence. She was just there, in case Rose needed her.

Rose had never been so grateful to have her.

She turned on her side and reached out, grasping Pearl around the waist and pulling her close. Pearl started a little in surprise, but settled quickly, allowed herself to be coddled. She wrapped her arms around Rose's head, and finally Rose felt she could breathe properly. She clung to her as though she were drowning.

"It's all going wrong," she whispered into Pearl's lap. "How did it get this far?"

"What happened?" Pearl asked tentatively.

Rose sat up and placed herself across from Pearl, to look her directly in the eye.

 _Why am I confiding in her?_

 _Because you have no-one else._

"The other Diamonds seem to believe that we can solve all our problems with infusions," she laughed bitterly.

"Fusing? But isn't that...?" Pearl started and trailed off.

"No, if it was merely fusing it wouldn't be a problem, even if we are different gem types," she said. "Infusing means we would artificially increase our mass by adding our base composites to substrate and ingesting it."

Pearl's eyes widened and she shuddered. Rose chuckled when she saw it.

"It's been done before, by Diamond Core. But only because we had no other options."

Rose sighed, looking at her own large hands. She was a large gem, she was proud of her size and shape. This mass had seen her through war and through a hundred orbits of rule. There were statues made in her shape dotted around Homeworld. Suddenly, it wasn't enough?

"What do you think? Would you like me to be bigger? More intimidating?" she asked, not expecting an answer.

"No," Pearl shook her head with a passion that astounded Rose. "I think you're perfect as you are."

What happened next, she truly hadn't intended, but she hadn't quite known what she did intend to do either. Perhaps she'd meant just to embrace her, to glean that extra little piece of solace from contact with her. Perhaps even a gesture of gratitude for how solid she was in her support.

But what actually happened is that she kissed her.

Rose's mouth was on Pearl's for a long stretch of time before she came to her senses and pulled away. Even as she did, Pearl's face was still in her hands, wide-eyed and stunned.

"Oh," Rose gasped. "I'm...I'm sorry, I shouldn't...that was..."

 _That_ was a terrible breach of trust, an inappropriate display of how much power she had over this gem, it was despicable...

 _...you're no better than Emerald..._

But Pearl blinked, and something inside her seemed to solidify. With a small breath in, she moved forward and _kissed Rose back!_

Rose allowed it. She hadn't kissed anyone for what seemed like an eternity, and she hadn't realized how much she had missed being so close to someone. With regret, she pulled away, gently placed her hands on Pearl's shoulders, wincing at how small they felt under her own solidity.

"We shouldn't..." she began, before Pearl interrupted.

"Why not?"

"It's not right. I have too much power over you..."

"I am free now, yes?"

"Yes, of course," Rose assured her.

"Then I am free to make my own choices," Pearl told her, quietly but sternly. "I choose you. If you'll have me."

How could she refuse?

…..

It brought her more joy than she had ever felt, even in the midst of the turmoil. It could not be called a partnering, as such liaisons were often known as, for Pearl rarely left the confines of the apartment and Rose was away so often. It did not resemble any of Rose's past partnerings, short and sweet though they were at the time.

They kept their embraces hidden in the apartment, in the rest pod, and Rose suffered through her cycles without her feeling like she was missing a part of her mass. She hadn't felt such a sweet agony since...

 _Diamond Core._

But what to do now, with Homeworld in such turmoil? Every stolen moment was a distraction. The Diamonds were determined to experiment with infusions, they had no idea who or what was blowing up sections of Homeworld, substrate was growing more finite by the cycle, Sodalite had a building full of pearls with nowhere to go...

...but it was so easy to forget when Pearl was in her arms, soothing her.

She tore herself away, much as it pained her, one cycle to visit Emerald, to maintain the facade that they were friends still. It unnerved Rose how easily she managed to switch back to friendliness, even as every word Emerald spoke filled her with cold anger.

"At a guess, I'd say it was one of the Jaspers messing around with pulsars," Emerald told her when the discussion turned to the explosions. "You know what they're like, always fiddling with things they don't understand."

 _You hateful creature! How dare you sit there and talk about my problems! I know what you did!_

"Yes, it could be," she mumbled, hiding her true feelings under a blithe smile.

"By the way, did you get your pearl's glitch fixed?" Emerald asked her, twirling a compound tube in her hand.

 _Don't talk about her! Don't you **ever** talk about her!_

"Maybe it wasn't a glitch," she said smoothly. "Maybe she just doesn't like you."

Emerald laughed, and snapped her fingers.

"They're not made to think like that. Otherwise none of them would like me!"

 _How can you even joke like that? What kind of monster are you?_

A pearl emerged out onto the balcony they were sitting on and handed Emerald a fresh compound mix. Emerald tugged the pearl onto her lap and kept her there, idly stroking her arm. Rose felt the urge to throw the compound in Emerald's smug face.

"Where did you get this one?" she asked instead, calm as she could be. "Substrate's too low for new pearls."

"Well, don't tell anyone, but it's a second-hand," Emerald told her. "Works just as well, and I can get a new one once the substrate's back up and running."

…..

"You have less than before," Rose noted, looking over the room at the pearls in their bundle.

"Found new homes for them," Sodalite said with a distracted air as she examined Pearl's vocal range. "Not a single stutter. Excellent."

"What homes? Where?" Rose asked.

"A few sympathetic gems took them in," Sodalite told her, turning to face her. "Friends of mine. I know them, they're perfectly safe there. Why?"

She lifted Pearl off the table and Pearl wandered off to join the bundle. Rose swallowed thickly.

"Emerald has a new pearl."

"Ah, I see," Sodalite mused. "And you thought maybe I'd given her one of these?"

"I'm sorry," Rose muttered, sinking onto the couch across from the exam table. "I'm finding it hard to trust anyone at the moment..."

"That's good," Sodalite enthused, offering her a compound mix and sitting across from her. "You should trust nobody. Everyone's got something to hide."

"Even you?"

"Especially me," Sodalite shrugged. "At least what Emerald does to her pearls is legal."

"It may be legal, but it's not right," said Rose.

"There's the fuzzy bit. You could change the laws, but you would have to reveal the reasons why to your fellow Diamonds."

She thought about it for a bare moment, before the terror of what that could bring and the knowledge that Pearl could be taken away from her drove her to shake it from her mind.

"That's for the future," she mumbled. "It can't happen right now, not until things are more stable. Speaking of the future, has Sapphire departed your company altogether?"

"She's returned to her old cloister for reconditioning," Sodalite told her. "Her visions were unclear, she'll be given other duties for a while. Her work here is done, anyway."

"Oh."

They sat in silence for a while, watching the huddled pearls gesture-speak. Their movements were wider now, less restrained, and beautiful to see, a fluid dance with hands and fingers.

A thought occurred to Rose. It wasn't a good idea to ask, but who better...?

"Tell me, what do you think of infusions?" she asked Sodalite.

"Infusions?" Sodalite sputtered.

Rose tensed; she'd never seen Sodalite rattled by anything before. Even the pearls looked up.

"I think it's insane," Sodalite whispered to her, though only the pearls were around to hear. "There's too many variables. I mean, I'm not a Peridot but..."

She raised her arms helplessly, unable to continue.

"Infusions saved Homeworld once," Rose told her severely. "We wouldn't be sitting here now if they hadn't."

"Diamond Core saved Homeworld, the infusions just helped her to achieve it," Sodalite retorted. "And I don't think she would have chosen to die the way she did if there had been any other solution. Would you?"

"No," Rose said sadly. "But if it comes to it..."

"We'll find a way without infusions," Sodalite assured her. "There was no time before. Now we have time, we will find another way."

The relief made Rose feel faint. She could be assured that she would never be so big that she couldn't hold Pearl comfortably in her arms.

…..


End file.
